“Herbie, you were asked to deliver Dink to Winwood Farm, and you failed.”

“I didn’t fail—his keepers failed!”

“You entrusted him to them, and they failed you. But you failed Eggers.”

“That’s warped,” Herbie said.

“Tell me something, Herbie, did you enjoy your tasks?”

“Well, yeah, but then everything went to hell.”

“Find a way to enjoy tracking down Dink. You’ll feel better.”

“I have no experience in the field of missing persons,” Herbie wailed. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Herbie, imagine that Dink owes you two hundred grand and that he is trying to avoid you.”

“I wouldn’t let him get away with that,” Herbie said.

“Exactly. What Dink actually owes you is his carcass at Winwood Farm. Find him and make him pay.”

“Where do I start?”

“Ask yourself, ‘If I were Dink Brennan and I wanted to avoid Herbie Fisher, where would I go?’”

Herbie regarded his well-buffed shoes morosely. “I don’t know where he would go.”

“Well, you know that he would probably not go back to the one place you already know about: his dorm room. Right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Who are his friends? Who is his girlfriend? Where does he drink? Those are all pertinent questions. Start finding out the answers.”

“Can I hire a PI? Those guys know how this is done.”

Stone sighed. “All right, I will authorize you to hire a skip tracer for three days at the expense of Woodman and Weld.”

“Eggers would go nuts if I spent that money.”

“No, Eggers would simply bill Marshall Brennan.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Suck it up, Herbie. Get it in gear, move your ass.”

Herbie got up and slouched toward the door.

“Herbie?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know a skip tracer?”

Herbie thought for a minute. “No,” he admitted.

“Sit down. I’m going to help you out.”

Stone pressed a button on his phone. “Joan, please get me Mike Freeman at Strategic Services.” He waited a moment.

“Mr. Freeman on one.”

Stone picked up the phone. “Mike?”

“Hello, Stone, welcome back from our nation’s capital. I read of your exploits in some of our worst newspapers.”

“Put it out of your mind, Mike. I have.”

“If you say so.”

“Mike, you’ve met a Woodman and Weld associate named Herbie Fisher, have you not?”

“I have. Nice young fellow.”

“And you know Marshall Brennan?”

“I do. I invest with him.”

“Good. Herbie was sent up to Yale to assist Marshall’s son, Dink, into a bucolic establishment in Connecticut where he was to receive attention for his gambling and drug problem.”

“Sounds like Winwood Farm.”

“One and the same. Unfortunately, in spite of Herbie’s stellar work, young Dink managed to extricate himself from the transportation provided and is now wild in the country.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Herbie is a bright fellow, but he has no experience in the tracing of missing persons. I thought, perhaps, that you might provide him with some assistance.”

“Who’s buying? Herbie?”

“Woodman and Weld, until they can bill Marshall Brennan.”